SPECTRALWhat happened here
Tradition dates the building to 1145 and says it housed the masons who built the nearby church. For centuries it was an inn. In 1968 John Humphries bought it to save it from demolition and lived there until his death in 2017, telling anyone who would listen about the spirits he shared it with.
Humphries said he found children's bones and broken daggers under the stairs, which he took as proof that the house stood on a pagan burial site. The inn became a fixture of ghost-hunting television.
The legends
The Bishop's Room is said to be the most active: guests describe being pinned down, touched and pulled from the bed, and some refuse to stay the night. Other rooms have their own residents — a woman accused of witchcraft said to have hidden there, a shepherd, a cavalier and a monk.
Humphries also described a succubus that attacked him in his bed, and visitors report cold spots, voices and the sound of heavy furniture moving upstairs.
Fact or legend?
The claims of child sacrifice and ritual daggers rest on Humphries' own accounts; no archaeological report has confirmed them. The building's age and its long life as an inn are genuine, and its present fame is the work of television and of one very devoted owner.
Visiting
The Ancient Ram Inn is a private house. It has at times hosted paid overnight ghost hunts; check whether any are running before you travel, and otherwise view it from the street.
